Scientists believe that animal testing is safe for humans to learn medical reactions without involving real humans. Research shows that the history of cancer research has been a history of treating cancer cells in the mouse.
Sometimes some of the results from animal testing prove to be effective but fail when tested with human beings. Every species reacts differently to different tests that scientists perform on it. Animal testing is one of the emotive subjects that should be debated. Below are reasons why it should be banned.
Causes unimaginable suffering
Most animals, especially mammals, have the same nervous system, perceptions, emotions and neurochemicals. All this is integrated into the experience of pain. Even though animals are great at handling different intensities of pain, sometimes some extreme experience events. Most procedures expose them to terrible pain and trauma.
Some are forced underwater without warning to test antidepressant drugs and any other experimental procedures meant to depressive like-states. This test is coming under increased criticism from activists. Most of the facilities pay little or no attention to the welfare of the animals under test, leading to unimaginable suffering.
For most students, working in the lab is time-consuming and needs a lot of focus. With many assignments to complete, it can be stressful to work under pressure and get a quality education. It’s also difficult to get done with the coursework and still do extensive research in the library too. They should seek help with essays and articles when they are running out of time. Reading the animal testing essay samples done by professionals on StudyHippo will give students an in-depth idea of what testing science is about. Same time, it will also teach them about writing essays on topics related to the subject.
It debases humanity
During the end of the Second World War, it was discovered that the Nazis were carrying out accurate medical testing on humans, which was thwarted. People regard these experiments as the most egregious instances of unethical human research. While no one would like to conflate the suffering in the labs as “planned genocide,” those animals suffer.
They are kept in decent cages and given food until their time for the experiment comes. Working in those laboratories debases humanity – primarily when the tests are conducted without caring for the animal. Humanity forms the basis of collective morality. So the researchers should take suffering into account too. This sounds difficult but there are way to make the process as humane as possible.
Biased policies
The Animal Welfare Act covers not all animals. In the U.S, it covers cats, dogs and primates. The fish, mice and rats aren’t covered. Research shows that over 10 million animals are abused to death annually, most of them die. Laboratory testing accounts for the most significant percentage. Most scientists argue that animals under the tests are well treated and have quality access to pain relief.
Breaches of the animals covered under the act being used are distressingly common. Pretending not to care about the animals, unaware of what is happening to them for cosmetics and pills, shows the unresponsiveness of the Act. It’s even more confusing how some scientists condemn the killing for meat while they are subjecting a good number of them to torture in the labs.
Unreliable results
No matter how science tries to use animals in various tests, it’s an unavoidable fact that, to some extent, human bodies react differently to medical substances. The human mind works differently from the other primates closely related to them. Most of the tests on animals appear promising at first but fail at the final trials. This makes the results unreliable.
The premise that animals like rats have a short life cycle to see how the medical substances react over time has flaws. Long human life creates more time for the side effects to manifest than in a rodent. Humans differ from animals’ cellular, anatomic, and metabolic basis, making them a poor substitute.
Too expensive
Most projects need huge capital for housing, food, and protection. The staff also need to be paid, and the welfare regulations and inspections add to the costs. In this case, the trials tend to be slow and can even take five years in case of the cancer tests on the rodents.
For unscheduled DNA synthesis, a test can cost about $32,000 and $11,000 for the vitro one. It’s ironic how a product designed for human use at a low-cost costs so much when testing animals. That’s why most people argue that these experiments should be banned. These high costs make it impossible for the regulators to assess the tested products’ potential effects.
Better alternatives
Scientists can perform toxicology tests using biochemical systems. They can do so instead of animals with advanced technology. Computer programs with advanced systems based on chemical databases enable them to predict its toxicity. Most of these results are not hindered by species differences that make applying the chemicals difficult. And they also take less time.
In vitro testing, researchers have created “organic-on-chips.” It contains human cells grown to mimic the structure and the function of the human organ systems. Researchers use cell-based tests and tissue models to assess the safety of drugs and cosmetics. This dynamic shift has been attributed to animal testing drawbacks where tests fail so much on humans after succeeding with animals.
Conclusion
Because animal testing procedures have failed numerous times, there is a need to ban the processes based on results. The trials are at no point an accurate prediction of how the substances will react. Even though human being need a lot of medical treatment for incurable diseases, animal tests are expensive, poorly structured and inaccurate in most cases. It’s completely unethical to cause so much suffering to animals on fault procedures.
